[14] In the 17th century, some or all of Mongolic-speaking Daurs lived along the Shilka, upper Amur, and on the Bureya River.

They thus gave their name to the region of Dauria, also called Transbaikal, now the area of Russia east of Lake Baikal.

Preliminary work on the unification of the Chita Oblast and Agin-Buryat Autonomous Okrug was started at the level of regional authorities in April 2006.

The governor of Chita Oblast Ravil Geniatulin, mayor of the Agin-Buryat Autonomous Okrug Bair Zhamsuyev, head of the regional parliament Anatoly Romanov, and Dashi Dugarov sent a letter to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and on 17 November 2006, he supported the initiative.

In Chita Oblast, "yes" was the predominant answer to the following question: Do you agree that the Chita Oblast and Agin-Buryat Autonomous Okrug merged into a new entity of the Russian Federation - Zabaykalsky Krai, which included Agin-Buryat Autonomous Okrug will be an administrative-territorial unit with special status, defined by the charter of the province in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation?In Chita Oblast, 90.29% (535,045 voters) of the voters voted for the union versus – 8.89% (52,698 voters) who voted against it.

[16] United Russia candidate Natalia Zhdanova was elected governor with 54% of the vote on 18 September 2016.

In addition, 28% of the population declares to be "spiritual but not religious", 17% to be atheist, and 16.15% follows other religion or did not give an answer to the survey.